


if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones

by bellamees



Category: Infinite (Band), Miss A
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Character Death, F/M, Fluff and Angst, binary codes, yep a lot of AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:29:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellamees/pseuds/bellamees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she’s walking around he has to avert his eyes, numbers are far more interesting, he thinks, but when she’s facing the opposite wall he steals glances at her back, her bones, he wonders if they’re hollow, circuits, machine, godly or divine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones

**Author's Note:**

> you definitely need a binary to text converter for this piece of weird writing to function properly. find one here: http://bit.ly/1iwvcmj - or just google it! :)

One day he wakes up and she’s there; he doesn’t remember when, or for how long she’s been there, is it real, is she real, what’s real. She has a bay window.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Curtains made of lace, threads thin like spider webs, overlapping each other to form the most curious patterns, pillows, colorful against the cellophane glass, her bed, her nest, hanging outward on a gray building, the maiden in the tower, _let down your raven hair_ , he thinks whenever he sees her, locked away in her castle, no stairs, one room, never leaving – and hence her nickname; lady princess, _gong-jooh-nim_ , three syllables, old language, mocking hue.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
When she’s walking around he has to avert his eyes, _numbers are far more interesting_ , he thinks, but when she’s facing the opposite wall he steals glances at her back, her bones, he wonders if they’re hollow, circuits, machine, godly or divine.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
(0110100100100000011101110110100101110011011010000010000001111001011011110111010100100000011101110110111101110101011011000110010000100000011000100110010100100000011011010110100101101110011001010010110000100000011011010110100101101110011001010010110000100000011011110110111001101100011110010010000001101101011010010110111001100101 – he types, it doesn’t make sense, zeroes, ones, erase, erase, erase, _again_.)  


 

* * *

  
  
  
He has a typewriter, old, ugly, his job, his life, scheduled times, he observes, he types, clothes colored 296C, like everybody else. Subject L, resident of 45, right side, 164 meters above ground, owner of two small potted plants, good behavior, annual leisure conceded last July.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
She’s not part of it like it’s naturally assumed by his peers; she’s a walking conspiracy, rebellious flesh, outside and against the State, clothes colored 290C, symbol of lazy resistance. It’s bewildering to watch her as she sleeps past seven, blissfully unaware of the hive breathing around her, drowned in more blankets a person is allowed to own, person, _is she_?  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
(011010010111001100100000011011000110111101110110011001010010000001100001001000000110011001100101011001010110110001101001011011100110011100111111, everything smells like carbon, and it’s blue, shades of 273C, or bleeding 711C.)  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
She’s staring back, first time she does that, in her hands a sheet of paper, numbers, zeroes and ones, no, words instead, letters, black against white, a canvas, their first meeting, first, a number, ordinal, and he wants to bathe in the glory of being seen.  
  
  
  
  
  
_I’m Suzy_  
  
  
  
  
He types numbers instead.  
  
  
  
011010000110100100101110001000000110100100100111011011010010000000110100001101010100110000101110.  
  
  
  
She, Suzy, princess, _goong-jooh-nim_ , smiles, not at the walls, not at withered potted plants, not at clouds shaped like animals (as she often does), at him, and he lives 75 centimeters away, and he wants to jump the void between the concrete walls (time of fall estimated by floor level, 164 meters, 15 seconds for 45L, more, less, it doesn’t matter. It’s not uncommon to hear the silent leap of faith of less unfortunate ones; they always shatter at some point, the reverb screaming even on the tallest levels, metallic and crude). She shows him another paper; _you have a funny name._  
  
  
  
_You too_ , he thinks.  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
One day there’s a knock on the glass, small and gentle, followed by another two, harsher, and others, until he opens his eyes, focusing, out of focus, something beeps, Suzy breathes outside, her upper body hanging above the void, laughing, and he wonders if it echoes like the shattering bodies do, or if she’s not afraid, or why her fingertips have drawings on it, thin lines, patterns.  
  
  
The glass clicks open, slides, silence riving, her hand is there for the taken, his skin feels rough against hers, goong-jooh-nim, he thinks, separating the syllables, as her fingers hold his, shaking, enthralling, he had never touched anyone before, and she lets him.  
  


* * *

  
  
He gets a warning after the second meeting; her skin was colder than before, like death, too. _Uncanny_ , he thinks. _Annual leisure withdrew, warning level: 1+._  
  


* * *

  
  
(01110100011011110010000001101100011010010111011001100101001000000111011101101111011101010110110001100100001000000110001001100101001000000110000101101110001000000110000101110111011001100111010101101100011011000111100100100000011000100110100101100111001000000110000101100100011101100110010101101110011101000111010101110010011001010000110100001010 – better erase)  
  
  
  
(There’s no such thing.)  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Love, much like a moth, is attracted to fluorescent light (and it’s 420C, like her room), bright and fake. Same goes with despair.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
_Why do you do what they tell you to?_  
  
  
  
He can’t find an answer for that, not even after a few days pass. He’s still typing, codes of zeros, ones, and zeros again. There aren’t any more potted plants, and a beeping sound follows his fingers, machine, soulless. Suzy has a soul, he senses it, is it made of binary codes? Is it made of something else? Love? Light? Is it edible? He hasn’t eaten yet, he remembers.  
  
  
  
Connecting another wire, he types some more. Suzy is nowhere to be seen, it’s too early for free birds to be out.  


 

* * *

  
  
  
  
_Abnormal machine, level 45._  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
“Come away with me.”  
  
  
  
Her voice is not like he imagined, it doesn’t speak in numbers, and it’s extraordinary, phonetically poetic. He doesn’t have a voice, not one he has heard before, how does one speak if not with numbers?  
  
  
  
“You’ll learn.”  
  
  
  
There’s a bright red light before he gets knocked out, battery running slow, room getting dark, eyes closing - do they ever? Sometimes they do. When he wakes up in 426C clothes, he knows he’s in trouble. A flashing screen reads _warning level: 5+_. Suzy is gone, fluorescent lights turned black.  


 

* * *

  
  
  
(01100001011011010010000001101001001000000110100001110101011011010110000101101110? _What am I?_ , erase, letters are useless, thoughts are useless.)  
  
  
  
  
( _But what am I?_ )  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Suzy sleeps for a long time.  
(01101001001000000110110101101001011100110111001100100000011110010110111101110101.)  
  
  
  


* * *

 

  
He wakes up with racing heart rate, beeping in his ears like an apocalypse warning. It’s Suzy, there, Suzy in his room, Suzy, patterned fingers, _goong-jooh-nim_ , old language, mocking hue. She crossed the void, he thinks, but no – his door is slightly agape, the door he can’t open from inside, and he sees the warm corridor light for the first time in years. His eyes focus, there’s a meager sound of machine on his chest, stirring his body, _Suzy_.  
  
  
  
  
“Are you still breathing?”  
  
  
  
(He doesn’t know what to say in return.)  
  


* * *

  
  
(011110010110111101110101011100100010000001100010011011110110010001111001001000000111010001100001011100110111010001100101011001000010000001101100011010010110101101100101001000000111001101110101011001110110000101110010001000000111011101100001011101000110010101110010001011000010000001100001001000000111010001100001011010010110111001110100001000000110111101100110001000000110110101100101011101000110000101101100001011000010000001100001001000000110011001101100011000010110100101110010001000000110111101100110001000000110001101110101011100100111011001100101011100110010110000100000011100110110111101100110011101000010110000100000011100110111011101100101011001010111010000101100001000000110000101101110011001000010000001101001011011100010000001101101011110010010000001100101011000010111001001110011001000000110000101101110001000000110010101100011011010000110111100100000011011110110011000100000011110010110111101110101011100100010000001110111011010000110100101110011011100000110010101110010001011000010000001110111011010000110100101101101011100000110010101110010001011000010000001101000011000010111101001111001001000000111000001100001011100110111010001100101011011000111001100101100001000000110100101110100001000000110011001101001011011000110110001100101011001000010000001101101011110010010000001100010011011110110010001111001001000000111011101101001011101000110100000100000001100010011100100111001010000110010110000100000011000100110110001100101011001010110010001101001011011100110011100100000011000010110111001100100001000000111000001100001011010010110111001100110011101010110110000101100001000000110010001110010011010010111000001110000011010010110111001100111001011000010000001110111011000010111001001101101001011000010000001111001011011110111010101110010001000000110100001100001011010010111001000100000011100110110100001100001011001000110010101100100001000000110110001101001011010110110010100100000011001000110010101100001011101000110100000101100001000000110100100100000011100000111010101101100011011000010000001101001011101000010110000100000011101000110010101100101011101000110100000101100001000000110100001110101011011100110011101100101011100100010110000100000011011000110111101110110011001010010000000101101001000000110000101110010011001010010000001111001011011110111010100100000011011010110100101101110011001010011111100100000011000010111001001100101001000000111100101101111011101010010000001101101011010010110111001100101001011000010000001101101011010010110111001100101001011000010000001101101011010010110111001100101, mine, mine, mine, mine – _until you’re not_. Erase.)  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
Numbers are nothing. Numbers don’t _feel_.  
(“Come away with me.”)  
  
  


 

* * *

  
  
She promises the fall will make him fly, live, escape. It’s not a lie, he knows. He’s in a cage, she’s free, freedom is colored 290C, and sleeps past seven in a hive full of breathing bees. Freedom has a bay window, lady freedom, his whole body beeping in three hundred sixty-five different ways when she’s around; she’s godly, divine, circuitless.  
  
  
  
  
( _Warning level: 10+_ )  
  
  
  
( _Abnormal machine, level 45._ )  
  
  
  
He jumps first, and he swears there’s apocalypse in her stare. But he’s free, he’s flying—  
  
  
  
(Time of fall estimated by floor level, 164 meters, 15 seconds for 45L, more, less, it doesn’t matter.)  
  
  
  
Fluorescent lights are all he sees before darkness. Like love, despair.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“It was another robot, sir.”  
  
  
  
“How bad?”  
  
  
  
“He jumped, sector 45. Dead.”  
  
  
  
“Another jumper, then.”  
  
  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
  
  
The man looked down from the most upper levels of the hive, eyes searching for abnormalities – finding none, only glass and fiber and caged souls. Jumpers, he thought, were probably born useless already.  
  
  
“What about the robot?”  
  
  
“She’s in custody, sir. She’s a SU90Z45Y34 type.”  
  
  
“Open her up, I want to see what they’re made of.”  
  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
  
“And provide replacement for 45L. The system can’t stop.”  
  
  
“Replacement is already in place. 45H, sir.”  
  
  
“Next time I want those damn ‘bots killed before they get to our crops, understood?”  
  
  
“Perfectly, sir. We’ll ensure extermination.”  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
(Last code added: 01101001001000000111011101100001011100110010000001101000011101010110110101100001011011100010110000100000011101110110000101110011011011100010011101110100001000000110100100111111 – configuration order: _delete, system delete_.)


End file.
